Friday, 02 April 2010

Chinese Style Spicy Eggplant

To tell you the truth, I don't really know what to call this dish. It is truly an "ABCD" - American Born Chinese Dish..... It takes a bit from a bunch of different dishes I've eaten. I'd love to call it "Gan Shao Qie Zi"(干燒茄子), dry braised eggplant, but this really isn't that either. The dish was born from necessity. The Missus loves eggplant, but at the time.... almost twelve years ago, all we had was a lousy electric stove. Also, since eggplant is a real "oil sponge" we really didn't want to use very much oil, especially without high heat.

I'm sure most of you have created your own hybrid dishes born of necessity. This one is ours. Basically, the eggplant starts in a smoking wok, but once color is achieved, the heat is turned down to medium.

The eggplant is flavored during cooking with some of our favorite ingredients. Items are added as the various liquids are absorbed by the eggplant.

Once the eggplant has been cooked as desired an additional sauce is mixed with the eggplant.

It's one of the dishes that we've kept since our apartment days...... It may seem like a lot of steps, but like most things I make, it's pretty easy.

And though I'm still not quite convinced this is worth a post, I'm tired of looking at the photos. Maybe you all can share the recipes born of necessity that you've kept from your college dorm or apartment days. I'm sure you've come up with some pretty innovative stuff and I'd love to read about it!

- When the eggplant starts to color add Shaoxing and turn heat to medium.- Add black vinegar, garlic, and sugar, and mix. Cover for 2 minutes to soften eggplant.- Uncover and stir fry over medium heat until liquid is absorbed, and eggplant starts to turn "dry".- Add soy sauce and keep stir frying.- If eggplant has not softened add water 2 tablespoons at a time, mix, cover, and repeat, until eggplant is fully cooked through.- Taste the eggplant, it should have some flavor even without the sauce.- Using your Chinese spatula, manipulate the eggplant until the desired texture is achieved.- Once the eggplant has reached your desired texture, add the sauce, mix quickly, and remove from heat.- Add chili oil to taste, and garnish with cilantro.

I have to admit, we're still in our apartment dwelling days =) and it is the biggest impetus for innovation and new cooking/baking/food prep techniques. I come up with more weird and clever ways to do things than i ever did when I had tons of counter space and more utensils than I ever needed.

I didn't cook much when I lived in the bachelor pad, but my roommate did. His favorite "concoction" was white rice topped with canned tuna and stringbeans with black pepper and soy sauce. Very microwave friendly, but just not very tempting to me at the time. Perhaps its time to give it a try (with the current shape of my belly and all).

hi, I've always thought about eggplants are like you said a haven for oil. Lucky for me though, my mother-in-law has a way she uses them which does wonders cooking them, but they don't have the oil, she steams them for about 10-15 minutes till they run clear. Then, she makes a sauce using ground beef/pork, garlic, water, a bit of dark soy sauce and pours them over the eggplants. Yum! My email add is lisa.ng@unb.ca feel free to email if you have any questions :0)

Hi, I've cooked this recipe of yours 3-4 times now and plan to cook it again tonight to wow friends as it is such an amazing recipe! I'm planning to try your spicy steamed eggplants next! keep the great recipes coming! :) and thank you!